Música llanera y andina en una ciudad de piedemonte

I am grateful for the precious opportunity China Scholarship Council provided to pursue my PhD degree in the Netherlands where I not only grew up in the field of science but also met a lot of wonderful people who made my life during the past four years colorful and memorable.

Dear Ron, thank you so much for being there at every moment of my PhD career. If not for your careful guidance and supervision, I would not run to the end of my four-year “marathon”. Your rich knowledge and experience in Wnt signaling nourished me in this field. Your generous encouragements and praises after each meeting made a more confident me. Your kindness, humbleness, cautiousness, honesty and responsibility deeply affected me and raised a better me. Your dedication to your students is superb. I won’t doubt if the time for discussion with your students piles up few hundreds of hours. And I appreciate your thoughtful understanding when it came to my responsibilities of a mother. You were the perfect supervisor for me.

Dear Maikel, many thanks for all your valuable advices and questions for my projects. You always opened my eyes to new horizons by coming up with novel knowledge and new techniques during our regular meetings. And I appreciate your great effort to revise my papers, especially the review paper.

Dear Abdullah, thanks for your help during the scholarship application and the first few months in Rotterdam. Even though I was not directly supervised by you for all kinds of reasons, I still learned a lot from you. Your sharp insight and superior ability in research deeply impressed me. And thank you for valuable suggestions for my papers.

Dear Gwenny, thank you for your help during the past years. I admired your keen insight in various fields, always popping up with amazing and sharp questions on the MDL seminar. And your easygoing smile always made me relax and warm.

Dear Sonja, thanks for your effort organizing the regular Monday Seminar and your valuable suggestions and questions on GIO meeting.

Dear Dave, thank you for insightful advices from the perspective of a clinical doctor on the regular meetings. They were very meaningful for my research.

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Dear Auke, thanks for your help ordering reagents, especially those not available in the order system. Best wishes for you, Kiran and little Mark.

Dear Harmen, thanks for your great help analyzing RNA-sequencing data.

Dear Shan, my first teammate, thank you very much for your efforts contributing to my projects. Each time I felt reluctant to go back to work, I always was able to persuade myself to pull up pieces of me by assuring you were always working late somewhere in the lab. You work so hard. And I greatly appreciate your encouragements to get over the frustration and setback from work and life. I hope everything goes well for your research. Wish all the best for you, Fang and little Chengcheng.

Dear Pengyu, my second teammate, thank you for helping me understand how to reuse the online database to extract useful information. Your ability to acquire and learn new knowledge independently, I believe, impressed a lot of people. And I really admire your competence to deal with several projects simultaneously. And you work so hard almost every day per week. I wish all the best for you and your wife.

Dear Menggang, my late teammate, thanks for your jokes and kind monkeyshines during boring lab time. And thanks for your advice for my future career choice to be an endocrinologist, although I might still stick to research. I am glad to be friends with you. Wish all the best for your family in Rotterdam and your future career in China.

Dear Marcin and Katarzyna, so nice to know you guys. I will never forget the first time to eat local Polish food in your luxurious apartment, so similar to Chinese dishes. Good luck for you and lovely Filip.

Dear Lei, thank you so much for dealing with the endless luciferase assay during my pregnancy. You are such a kind person always ready to help other people. I feel so happy for your achievement for your PhD career and your wise choice to work in your hometown. Thanks for your company during the four years as a thoughtful friend. Deep in my heart, I wish all good luck for your life and future career.

Dear Yuebang, thank you for great help during my pregnancy. You have a warm heart to help everyone who comes to you anytime anywhere. From you, I see the best explanation for the spirit of insistence and self-improvement. You are the winner of life. You make the best of you. I believe you will live a wonderful life with your family in the future.

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Dear Wenshi, my “brother”, your humor deeply impressed me starting with your exclusive noodle dance and gradually, I realized that actually you were such a serious and potential young academic researcher. Your intelligence is witnessed by all of us, despite your humble attitude presented. I believe your success won’t stop here. You and Bobo are very nice and warmhearted persons. I wish you both have a bright future and a happy life together.

Dear Xinying, my dear friend, you were so kind to me during those three years. Thank you so much for inviting me to your apartment for diners and hanging out with me so many times. And your positive way to face difficulties greatly inspired me. I hope, my dear friend, you will overcome the temporary bottleneck of work and live the life you want.

Dear Wen and Buyun, thank you for organizing all kinds of activities, such as barbecue, long-trip cycling and traveling. The happy memory is deeply seeded in my brain. And you are both working so hard almost every day. I wish your projects go well and graduate on time. Lastly and importantly, I hope you two will get rid of single life soon.

Dear Prof. Kairong Wang, it is my honor to meet you and my pleasure to make friend with you. You are such a calm and modest person. Thank you for sharing your experience in research and life with us. Wish you and your wife all the best in China.

Dear Kostas, thank you for your great help for providing TMA slices and analyzing the tissue data during your busy schedule.

Dear Wanlu, Guoying and Meng, you are smart and beautiful-research ladies in our lab. I hope you achieve your goals in study and good luck for your future career.

Dear Juan, you are such a creative and persistent person! I feel glad that you quickly found your own field to explore which indeed attracts you. Good luck for the defense and your future career.

Dear Zhouhong, I am glad to know you in my last year in the Netherlands, such a beautiful and intelligent girl. And I feel so happy for you to get married to Ruijie. Good luck with your research and future career.

Dear Jiaye and Sunrui, thank you for inviting me for delicious dinners. And your way to treat life greatly affected me and made me change a lot into a person positively embracing life. Wish you all the best.

Dear Suk Yee Lam （淑仪）, it is so late to know you（相见恨晚）. I indeed enjoyed each time talking with you. Good luck for your experiments and your PhD career. You are welcome to my home in China.

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Dear Marla, it is really nice to know you during my last few months in the lab. Always nice to talk with you about babies. All the best for your family.

Dear Patrick, you are such a nice person. Thanks for your help each time I came to you. Dear Jan and Paula, thanks for your sweet smiles each time I stepped into the lab. And thank you for your effort to manage the lab.

Dear Petra, thank you for chatting with me now and then in the lab and your elegant smile whenever we met. Wish all the best for you and your family.

Dear Marieke, thank you for helping me with the flow cytometry experiments.

Dear all present and past MDL members, Yijing, Changbo, Yingying, Gulce, Harkim, Jorke, Monique, Floris, Lisanne, Vincent, Pauline, Thijmen, Ruby, Henk, Kim, Anthonie, Aniek, Gertine, Frances, Buddy, Shanta, Marcel, Hugo, Kelly, Andrea, Andre, Jaap, Jun, Leonie, Raymond, Kan, Pratika, Julian, and Kiran I would like to thank for your help during the past four years. And my best wishes to all of you.

Dear Manzhi, congratulations to be a mother! You are the stubbornest and most decisive person I have ever seen! I know you will make it. Good luck for your future career and merry life with Maoxin.

Bin Wu and Tao Lu, so nice to know you guys. Wish every good luck for your projects

and future career.

My dear Marian, it is my luck to live with you in the last two years in Rotterdam. I learned a lot from you, especially the serious attitude to enjoy life. Dear Annemarie and Lan, your generous help with my big issue is appreciated deeply in my heart. I indeed enjoyed the time spent together with you. Wish all the best for you guys. I will miss you. You are always welcome to my new homes.

Dear Joe, Marco and Paul, thank you for your thoughtful help during that ten months. Wish you all the best!

感谢我的爸爸妈妈，全力支持我出国四年继续追求我的学业，感谢你们抚养和教育，你 们是我坚强的后盾。在以后日子里，希望你们能够少一些操心，多一些时间去享受生活，关注 自己的健康。我爱你们！感谢我的公公婆婆,在我留学期间,悉心地照顾萌萌,让我没有后顾之 忧。感谢你们的支持和理解。希望你们健健康康，开开心心每一天。

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Dear Zhiyong, my beloved husband, thanks for your love, support and understanding during the last years. Thank you for taking good care of mine and your parents. Thank you for taking everything without breaking my peaceful life in Rotterdam, allowing me to concentrate on my study. I am a lucky dog to meet you, know you and marry you. And my lovely son, Luhan, you are my angel god set to brighten my life. Your every sweet smile and word since you were born is deeply engraved in my brain. Each time I feel tired or blue, your cute face blows away all the upset things and cure my mind. I feel badly sorry for not being able to be around you during your first two years and missing so many of your first times. I cannot wait for the happy life we will live together. I love you both so much!

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